Heraldry

Starting with a brief overview of the sage ability system.

The goal is to systematize the game world's knowledge & skillset into a single organized system, not for the sake of simplicity but as a means to ensure continuity and complete inclusiveness.  Each character class is supplied with at least 15-20 "studies," which serve to classify everything that can be done or known.  In toto, this creates a great many sage studies — about 200, many of which exist as notes and ideas and haven't been fully sketched out.

Characters are able to specialize in the sage study of their choice, but by the system's design, will accumulate at an "authority" knowledge in every sage study available to that class eventually.  Being an authority would be equivalent to a fully-capable professional.  Each study permits a number of "abilities."  These are not "feats."  For the most part they are capabilities the character possesses which do not require a die roll.  For example, someone proficient in scouting doesn't roll a die to make a fire or locate nearby water; a potter doesn't need to roll in order to create pottery; an alchemist doesn't roll to identify a mineral.  Sometimes, a roll is made to determine how long something takes or how much can be found.  For example, a mushroom hunter will find mushrooms when searching, if mushrooms grow there; but will need to roll to see how many.  A lockpick will certainly pick a lock, but how long it takes requires a roll.

In some cases, a success roll is needed.  A physician knows how to heal a patient, but this doesn't mean the patient will always live.  A rock-climber is very likely to successfully climb a mountain, but some conditions, like ice, are never certain.  Therefore, each individual ability must be assessed for risk — but most abilities are a matter of the character knowing how something is done, or what something is, and simply knowing.

All knowledge is included in the system.  How is a wand made and filled with power?  That's two sage abilities, one involved with growing the wood and one embuing it with power.  Where do potions come from?  Sage ability.  How is an artifact made?  A collection of very difficult to achieve sage abilities.  How do you travel to another plane of existence, other than using a spell?  Sage ability.  How do you call a demon?  How do you build a coven?  How do you make golems or other sentient creatures from base materials?  How do you obtain contracts as an assassin?  How do you forge goods?  How do you fight better and hit harder?  How do you learn to breathe underwater?  How do you learn to manage a sled-dog team?  How do you build an airship?  How do you visit other planets?  How do you train soldiers to fight in an extremely tight formation?  How do you teach anything, or learn anything?  Sage abilities.

If I think of a thing that can be done, and the sage ability doesn't exist, I figure out which study it belongs in and put it there ... so that eventually a player possessing that study will be able to do that thing.  All told, at present, there are about 2,000 sage abilities that have been proposed for creation and eventual use.  It's no wonder I haven't written pages for all of them.  But I'm in no hurry.  All of these things consist of things the players have never been able to do; they are "extra" bonuses to their character's abilities, and they will wait to get them.

Okay, let's get to the meat of this post.

Some sage studies are ludicrously obscure — at least to the mindset of the traditional player.  Many have fairly oblique applications to the traditional D&D adventure structure.  One such example is the study, Heraldry, Signs & Sigils: 

"Armory is that science of which the rules and laws govern the use, display, meaning and knowledge of the pictured signs and emblems appurtaining to shield, helmet or banner.  Heraldry has a wider meaning, for it comprises everything within the duties of a herald; and whilst Armory undoubtedly is Heraldry, the regulations of ceremonials and matters of pedigree, which are really also within the scope of Heraldry, most decidedly are not Armory." 

— A Complete Guide to Heraldry

I've read several texts now on the subject and I can say with familiarity that the writing is all like this; I've come to believe there's a motive to deliberately obscure making plain statements as the result of a conspiracy bent to ensure that outsiders never really understand how Heraldry works.  Please, feel free to read the linked book and tell me I'm wrong.

The above seems a puzzling addition to the list of character abilities ... but I assure the reader, it's impossible to overestimate the importance of heraldry and heraldic symbolism as it pertains to the fantasy/medieval time period.  Most people, including nobility and most soldiers, were unable to read; society was organized along thousands of parcelled land units that existed semi-independently from overlords, and along the lineages of the families who controlled them.  Every parcel and every family possessed an "icon" that defined who and what they were, what their ancestors had accomplished, what rights and privileges they possessed and to whom they owed their fealty.  Making sense of the host of 25,000 French Knights at Agincourt required extraordinary skill in the realm of semiotic linguistics, compounded by the recognition that every family treated failing to be recognized and respected as a slight that could cause the break-up of an army and systemic hatred that could last for centuries.

A king's life was not made easy by this.

Still, this hardly bears much importance for a traditional group of D&D adventurers.  So why include the sage study at all?

Part of the benefit of the system is that it applies not only to player characters, but to NON-player characters also.  Every skill and bit of knowledge that exists in the game world is possessed by someone, even if it's not the players.  Moreover, the amount of knowledge required to have the particular sage ability gives a solid guideline as to the individual's experience level and social status.  Levels enable the accumulation of knowledge points, which enable the accumulation of sage studies and abilities.  Anyone making potions is a very high-level character, most likely a mage (but not definitely ... there are various ways to crosstrain into the sage studies of other classes).

Therefore, even if a player cares not at all for this study, someone does.  Additionally, since the character will gain knowledge points in the study, even if they don't actively show an interest for it, there's reason to create meaningful benefits to the study for the character to gain ... such as the old Monster Manual's enabling of attack bonuses to several non-human races when within a certain distance of a tribal standard.  This, like every other random bit of flotsam that appears in D&D, neatly fits into the system as well.

I bring up this particular example, however, because it's very hard to invent practical uses for something this esoteric ... though, slowly, things occur and get fit into the whole.  There's no hurry for heraldry for, as I say, it's not likely a player will choose the study over something more immediately applicable and useful.  Here, I'm using it as an example to support the readers' worldbuilding efforts.

Write everything you think down; and try to make it organized, so you can revisit it later on and expand upon it.  In creating your game world, you don't want to forget things.  I began my sage abilities system seven years ago; it is far too big to keep in my consciousness, not to mention far too arcane.  Yet each time I revisit a given page, or reconsider a certain place or proposed bit of design, having a single organized structure to my thinking enables me to be forever building on what I've done before, and not wasting time endlessly reworking the same things without advancement.

That's what it used to be like, when everything I did was on paper and stacked in binders in the 1980s and 90s.  Wiki-design a spectacular advancement in knowledge management — one that I would certainly include with double-entry bookkeeping and subject indexing.

On to other things, then.